Awareness Raising on Emergency Management - Research Paper Example

Awareness Raising Project on Emergency Management Outline: This is an information campaign project for making the people aware of the need for emergency management. The project report or the information campaign is developed in such a way that, first there is a brief description of the reason or rationale for the project followed by aims and objectives of the campaign, target population description, need to raise awareness in emergencies, and a discussion of the element of the campaign. Introduction: Emergency management refers to preparing the people for dealing with disaster and address the situation after the disaster or emergency. If there is no proper emergency management system in an organization or country, it may affect the day-to-day activities of the particular organization or country. Here in this report a country is selected for studying the emergency management system and the selected country is United Kingdom. Emergencies can happen anytime. So every organization or country should be ready to deal with the emergencies, otherwise it will affect the smooth functioning of the organization The main objective behind this report is to create awareness among the people, including the foreigners who travel to UK, about the need for proper disaster management system in the country and follow the instructions provided by the concerned authority for dealing with such situations. The campaign aims to make UK as a good example in the world in dealing with emergencies The recent terrorist attacks in the country raise a question of need for a sophisticated emergency management system. “During the year following the events of Sept. 11, the role of emergency management has taken the spotlight, as communities have turned to their local emergency managers to address planning issues that have expanded to include the threat of terrorism.” (Thompson). This program conducts different types of campaign such as offer classes, videos, plan work conferences, visit schools and posters to raise awareness of emergency and disaster preparation. Rationale for the project: Emergencies can happen anytime. So every organisation or country should be ready to deal with the emergencies, otherwise it will affect the smooth functioning of the organisation. In order to deal with different emergencies the people have to be aware of the emergencies. The chief rationale behind this project is to make the people aware of the need for the emergency management system. In most of the cases it can be seen that, emergencies create so many problems in organizations or countries only because of the reason that there was no proper emergency management system and people are not trained or informed of how to deal with the situation. If people are properly made aware of the emergencies, they can easily deal with the situations before the emergency period, during the emergency period and after the emergency period. When different natural calamities and other disasters happen, people are facing it difficult to deal with the situation as they are not prepared to deal with such disasters or emergencies. This is the real rational behind this report. Today the world is facing threats from terrorists. Terrorist attacks can take place at any time. Everyday the newspapers are filled with the news of terrorist attacks. The country should be prepared to face and deal with the situation. And also the natural calamities can take place at any time. This is mostly beyond the control of the human being. Though some efforts can be taken to avoid the natural calamities, in most of the cases the preventive measures pathetically fail. The thing that can be done is to reduce the severity of the disaster. Aims and objectives of the information campaign: The main objective behind this report is to create awareness among the people, including the foreigners who travel to UK, about the need for proper disaster management system in the country and follow the instructions provided by the concerned authority for dealing with such situations. The campaign aims to make UK as a good example in the world in dealing with emergencies. London has been the victim of so many disasters like floods, disease, fire, riot and war which took several persons’ lives and assets. Even though London has recovered from all these disasters in a short span of time, emergency management programs raise awareness for emergency and help your neighbors get educated as well. As stated earlier the chief objective of the report is to make awareness in the people thereby preventing emergencies to some extent. Other objectives include controlling or restricting the damage that arise due to emergencies. If the people are aware in advance as to how to respond to the emergencies, it can help to reduce the amount of financial as well as other losses. The report also aims at elimination of risk out of unexpected emergencies. Another important objective of the report is to create preparedness for emergencies. Background information of United Kingdom: It is better to analyze the background information of United Kingdom in the context of emergency management. Though United Kingdom is treated as one of the safe countries in the world, it is also supposed to have a good emergency management system. There is no time or place limit for emergencies. It can happen at any time and anywhere in the world. No country, organisation or individual is free from such emergencies. London is capital city of the United Kingdom. Today London is the largest metropolitan city with population of more than seven million. People have come from different regions of the globe to live here. The U.K is the fifth richest country in the world, and is a top international trading supremacy. London is still a leading international trading center. A vastly urbanized, diversified, market-based financial system with widespread social welfare services offers most people with a high standard of living. The ratio of unemployment and inflation are at very low level within the European Union. People of U.K are highly educated and literate. London was the victim of so many disasters like floods, disease, fire, riot and war which took several persons’ lives and assets. Even though London has recovered from all these disasters in a short span of time, today London is one of the major target cities of terrorist groups like Al Qaeda. People in London are worried about terrorist attacks. Terrorists attacked a number of transportation lines in London in 2005. On 7 July 2005 bombs exploded in underground trains, which caused more than 52 people to lose their lives and many were injured. We cannot predict when the disaster comes and goes United Kingdom takes high precautions on terrorism after this incident of London bombings. The most common types of terrorist incident are bombings, kidnapping and hostage–taking, armed attack and assassination, arsons and fire bombings, hijackings and skyjacking. “Terrorism is one type of psychological warfare that intends to influence the governments and the general public.” (Chalk 1996, p. 3). “Since the tragedy of September 11, 2001, public transit systems across the country have worked very hard to strengthen their security plans and procedures and have been very active in training personnel and conducting drills to test their capacity to respond to emergencies”. (Millar 2005). Target audience: The entire United Kingdom is considered as the target audience of this information campaign. As there are different types of disasters either of them may be affecting them directly or indirectly. For example the remote areas may not have to be much bothered about the terror attacks, but they have to be conscious of natural calamities like earth quake, flood etc. Therefore there is a need for making aware the entire United Kingdom, the need for the emergency preparedness and management. Need to raise awareness: Effective emergency management is essential for preventing the occurrence of the disaster or reducing its effect. Proper awareness can help in formulating preventive measures for dealing with the disaster. As there are different types of disasters or emergencies, it requires a proper awareness of each type of emergencies, so that facing the situation will be a little easier. Generally, two kinds of disasters are affecting any organisation or country. 1. Natural disaster: natural disaster is very difficult to avoid. We can only take possible safety measures to prevent maximum losses. Flood, fire, hurricane, volcano, earthquake are the most common natural disasters. It is highly threatening for human life and their assets. 2. Man-made disasters: failure is the main reason for man-made hazards. They can occur due to human error and involvement. The error or involvement might have occurred intentionally or unintentionally. But it can make huge effect such as loss of communication and utility. Protest, damage, virus, computer crime, theft, interruption are considered as most common human induced disasters. Generally speaking, the people of United Kingdom are victims of Katrina. They suffer a lot by these deadly and fascinating forces. It makes high volume of destruction and death. It is also called as twisters or cyclones. The most general type of terrorist act is bombings. The main reason of bombing is that the explosive devices are very cheap and easy to make. Modern bombing tools are too small and difficult to notice. The terrorists can also use resources that are readily accessible to the average consumer to assemble a bomb. Generally terrorists do not target the specific audiences while doing the attack. The common purpose of bombing is that the terrorists wanted to make maximum causalities and destructions by the time of incident. In 2005 London bombings affected passengers who were depending on train. “Bombings of buildings with or without causalities or car bombs in crowded areas often intended to demonstrate to the general public that they are vulnerable. The resulting fear may lead the public to put pressure on the government to change policies, or it may lead to the weakening of public support for the leaders in power who are seen to be unable to protect the citizens from a small band of dissidents.” ( Lutz 2004, p.11). Flood is another natural hazard. It is caused by excessive rain or destruction of dams in a particular place. “Themes flood” is a flood disaster occurred in London in 1928. So many persons lost their lives and many of them were made homeless when flood waters flowed over the top of Thames Embankment and part of the Chelsea Embankment collapsed. The damage caused by the flood took several years to repair. The residents of Thames riverside were the victim of this disaster. Generally any disaster (natural or manmade) can occur and destroy country’s economy. The hackers have motivations like ego, challenge, rebellion which guide them to do hacking, social engineering, system interruption, unauthorized system access and such kind of activities. Today organizations are in more danger due to computer crime and employee fraud than ever before. The organizations are not resisting today from computer crime - both external and internal threats - to safeguard their data and information. The terrorists’ motivations are destruction of information, illegal information disclosure, monetary gain, unauthorized data alteration etc. These motivations lead them into computer crime like cyber stalking, replay, impersonation, information bribery, spoofing, and system interruption kind of activities. Today, the common issue faced by all the nations and organizations is terrorism. Their intention is to do blackmail, demolition, utilization, vengeance etc. The terrorist attack to the organisation causes bombing, information warfare, system attack, system penetration; system tampering etc. The other man made disaster is industrial spying. A foreign country or other organizations are behind this activity to get maximum competitive advantages and economic espionage from their competitive nation or organisation. It affects economic exploitation, information theft, interruption on personal privacy, social engineering, system penetration, access to unauthorized system etc. The poorly trained, negligent, dishonest, or terminated employees are making disasters in IT infrastructure. Sometimes their intentions like curiosity take them into danger. Otherwise the common factors like ego, cleverness, economic gain, and vengeance are motivating to do such type of hazards. The other dangerous situation is using active logins and passwords by the former employees which help them enter into the organization network and access easily. The server room should always be kept very safe and secure. Otherwise there is a possibility of theft, fraud, and unauthorized access by unauthorized users, disgruntled employees or computer criminals. Emergency management programs are playing important roles to protect people, asset, environment and the economy from natural, technological and man-made hazards. Disaster can hit very swiftly and without any information. So we should not wait until the first calamity hits. It can compel us to abandon our place or detain us to our home. Emergency management programs raise awareness for emergency and help our neighbors get educated as well. This programme conducts different types of campaign such as offer classes, videos, plan work conferences, visit schools and posters to raise awareness of emergency and disaster preparation. Offering classes is considered as one of the easiest techniques to raise awareness for emergency and disaster training. The person who is an expert of emergency management can teach himself. Making a day long class on topics like preparation against flood or what to do in a terrorist attack is the ideal way to educate the society. One can ask fees for these classes, if he/she must. One will get large number of students if he/she is conducting classes without asking money. Educational posters would help one to raise awareness for emergency in one’s area. One can print the posters at very low price by the association of local printing organisation. Design of posters is playing a significant role t to educate people about what to do at the time of disaster or emergency. One can make posters that detail what each people should do during an earthquake warning, if he lives in a place where there is a possibility of earthquake. People can hang up the posters in their residence and can never be without the significant information it contains. School visits will help educate children on emergency preparedness. Build up an interactive arrangement that is suitable for the institution planned for visit. One should arrange a meeting with the school administrator to get children on board. If the topic is added with fun, children will not forget what they should do in an emergency or any disaster. And the children will share this information with their whole family and neighbors. They will also be more equipped to recognize what to do if they become alienated from their family at the time of emergency or disaster. Office is the place where emergency or disasters occur commonly. The employees of the organisation always should take adequate preparation to handle anything that may occur at work. The organisation should plan work conferences that give out information concerning emergency situations; whether this convention is a company extensive event, or if each section takes a year to detail exit directions and other relevant information. If the workplace does not presently have any information accessible, consider speaking with the employer to begin something immediately. Those who are related with the construction and the related field are to be given awareness in building equipment designs, emergency exit door system. Emergency exit doors have to be fixed with automatic unlock system. Detection apparatus comprising sensors have to be fixed which is capable of detecting the presence of fire or smoke in the premises. The fire doors have to be fixed strategically capable of accessing to all of the employees in the organisation. (Fire disaster prevention system and a method to prevent loss of life 2009). Making a short video is very helpful for emergency awareness. We can supply the video to churches, schools, offices, friends, relatives, families and establishments. These videos will help each person to know what they should do in case of disaster or emergency situations. Usually people are very interested in giving more attention to watch videos rather than read a pamphlet on the topic. It is very essential to assist and educate people on disaster emergency preparedness, particularly in a place where disasters such as earthquake are regular events. When you are educated on these matters, you are able to recover the situation safe and sound. (Metaphysics improves life). The information campaign also includes making aware of preventing or reducing the impact of the earth quake. Preventive measures of earth quake and other environmental hazards: 1. Replace the heavy weight objects in the ground floor to prevent injury from the falling of the objects. 2. For all critical computer equipment, equipment tie downs have to be applied. 3. Emergency power system has to be made available in the site all time. 4. Earth quake structure procedure has to be followed to reduce the impact of the disaster. 5. Important data resources and vital records are required to be backed up or kept stored in off site. 6. Proper training should be given to the staff to face the risk efficiently. (Preventive measures examples 2008). Conclusion: Disaster is a thing which, in most of the cases, cannot be completely prevented. But if the people are aware as to how to deal with the emergencies, the after-effects or the impact of the emergencies can be reduced to a certain extent. Information campaign is the better way to make the people aware. Though the natural calamities are beyond the control of human being, the man-made disasters or emergencies like terrorist attack can be eliminated by combined efforts of the people and technology. Reference Chalk 1996, 13 Fire disaster prevention system and a method to prevent loss of life 2009, Free Patents Online, viewed 24 April 2009, http://www.freepatentsonline.com/3818635.html Lutz, Brenda J 2004, Global terrorism, Routledge, viewed 24 April 2009, http://books.google.co.in/books?id=0YUCtOTEjncC&pg=PA11&lpg=PA11&dq=target+audience+of+bombing&source=bl&ots=B3gb6qsQnb&sig=4Bsp4A6jCLN7xvBR2ZxtTVggmEE&hl=en&ei=h6fuSe70L4OgkQWQ6r2gDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4#PPA11,M1 Metaphysics improves life, Solve Your Problem.com, viewed 24 April 2009, http://www.solveyourproblem.com/emergency-disasters/disaster_emergency_awareness.shtml Millar, William W 2005, The London Attacks: Public Transportation Security (House Homeland Security Committee, Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Science and Technology): information sharing, APTA: American Public Transportation Association, viewed 24 April 2009, http://www.apta.com/government_affairs/aptatest/testimony050726.cfm Preventive measures examples 2008, Training HIPAA.net, viewed 24 April 2009, http://www.training-hipaa.net/template_suite/Preventive_Measures.htm Thompson, Karen S, The importance of investing in a sound emergency management program, IAEM: International Association of Emergency Manegers, viewed 24 April 2009, http://www.kema.org/Documents/EM_Promo_Article_2002.pdf Read More